Former Ventura Official Files Suit, Saying a Quiz Led to Job Difficulties : A Clash Over Personalities

When he was hired as Ventura’s transportation and traffic engineer last fall, one of the first things Nazir Lalani did on the job was visit a psychologist.

Under the therapist’s supervision, Lalani took a short personality quiz that city officials hoped would give co-workers a general idea of his character and communication style.

In doing so, he joined more than 300 city employees who have taken the quiz over the last two years in the aim of promoting teamwork throughout City Hall, the Police Department and the Fire Department.

“To me, it’s been very helpful,” Lalani said. “I’ve learned a lot from recognizing certain personality traits and adjusting my own style accordingly.”

But the reviews have not all been good. In a $6.3-million lawsuit against the city, a former financial officer has alleged that information shared with the psychologist as a result of the quizzing caused him to be denied a promotion.

‘Psychological Discipline’

Fred L. Patrick, who last week resigned as assistant to the finance director, contends that he was stripped of his authority and forced to submit to a therapy program after disgruntled employees complained about his management style.

“They used the psychologist to discipline Fred Patrick, and that’s not proper,” his attorney, Richard A. Weinstock, said. “The psychologist shouldn’t be in the position of deciding who is right and who is wrong.”

City officials declined to comment on the pending litigation but defended the personality profile as an effective tool for minimizing conflicts in the work environment. Such tests, they point out, have been standard tools in the business world for years.

“It’s been very positive,” City Manager John Baker said. “If you’re going to work together as a team, you’ve got to figure out how to best approach people. You’ve got to learn to accommodate other people and their styles.”

The personality quiz used by Ventura, which is the only city government in Ventura County to employ such tests, is based on a set of 24 questions contained in a booklet known as the Personal Profile System.

Each question lists a set of four descriptive terms, such as gentle, persuasive, humble and original. Another sample set consists of the words attractive, God-fearing, stubborn and sweet. The respondent is then given seven minutes to decide which of the words in each set best describes his work behavior, and which describes him the least.

The results are graphed according to four general personality traits--dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance--from which 15 classical personality profiles are drawn.

Developed by psychologist John Geier and published in Minneapolis by the Carlson Learning Co., the quiz has been taken by more than 6 million people since the early 1960s, according to a spokesman for the firm.

“By responding to different words, you can very quickly determine the type of personality style you have,” said Barbara Wressler, the company’s marketing services director.

While it would seem easy for a clever test-taker to gear his responses to what he thinks his supervisors want to hear, that is seldom the case, said Sam Herbert, the Ventura psychologist who oversees the process for the city.

Getting Along With Co-Workers

Herbert, whose firm, Synergetics, is paid about $25,000 a year for administering the quiz to City Hall employees and council members, said people generally use the test not to secure promotions or raises, but simply to get along better with their co-workers.

After administering the test to new employees, Herbert said he usually spends about a day and a half teaching them how to best respond to the varying personality types.

In addition to the City Hall fees, his firm is paid $200,000 a year by the Police Department, although his duties there include a wide variety of additional psychological services. The Fire Department employs a different consultant, but Chief Bob Horne said the expense is negligible because the fire captains have been trained to do most of the testing themselves.

Although no employee is required to take the quiz, city officials say that none has objected when asked if he was interested in participating. And while the results of the quiz are private, they say, most employees are eager to share their personality profiles with co-workers.

“It forces you to sit down and take the time to think about your working relationships,” Horne said. “The end result is that you’re all speaking a common language.”

In City Hall, for instance, Lalani works with an “S-type” person who fears abrupt change and says that he adjusts his style by introducing new ideas more slowly.

“I say, ‘What do you think of this? I don’t say, ‘Do it this way!’ ” Lalani said. “If I did, I would alienate that person.”

Public Works Director Shelley Jones, who is a detail-oriented “C-type” person, says that he often skips over a lot of the specifics when talking with a dominant “D-type” person, such as Baker, the city manager.

“I just have to get to the bottom line,” Jones said.

And Police Chief Richard Thomas, another dominant “D-type” person, says that he has learned to take a deep breath and relax when talking with the detail-oriented “C types.”

“If I’m just looking for the bottom line, I can offend that person, insult him and cut him off too soon,” Thomas said. “If I catch myself getting frustrated . . . I just deal with my own feelings, recognizing that’s their style.”

City Council members are also given the opportunity to take the test, although some express skepticism about its effectiveness. “It’s kind of interesting to know those things, but it’s not the basis for running a city government,” said Mayor Jim Monahan, whose “S-I” profile marks him as patient, responsive and tolerant.

In the case of Patrick, the former financial officer, the personality profile itself is not under contention. However, his attorney claims, “that’s how the psychologist gets in the door.” Patrick alleges that when his co-workers met with the psychologist to discuss the quiz, they vented complaints that later resulted in disciplinary action against him.

In a confidential 1986 memo from Management Services Director John McMillan, Patrick was informed that the psychologist had found “a universally shared view that your style was very difficult to work with.” He was instructed to begin counseling sessions and told that the psychologist would be present at all Finance Division meetings.

Patrick, who went to nine therapy session and then stopped, later received a memo from Baker telling him that he was being reassigned to a special project to relieve him of the “obvious tension” under which he was operating. Shortly thereafter, a reorganization plan eliminated Patrick’s old position and created a position that Patrick thought he was entitled to, but was not awarded.

“It seems obvious that Mr. Baker’s negativity toward Mr. Patrick stems from Mr. Patrick’s refusal to participate in the city’s mandatory psychological testing/counseling program, and/or from confidential information Mr. Baker obtained about Mr. Patrick through it,” Weinstock wrote in a March 16, 1987, letter to the city.

However, in court briefs, the city denies that Patrick was improperly disciplined, or that he had a legal right to the new position. In the memo to Patrick, McMillan indicates that there were already tensions in the office and that he had hoped the psychologist would help remedy those problems.

“I felt that I needed to take some action to bring people together--to have them work harmoniously rather than in the disharmony which is clearly the case now,” McMillan wrote.

“I viewed the ‘personal profile’ as the catalyst or tool which would begin to build understanding rather than perpetuate distrust.”

Gentle

Persuasive

Humble

Original

Fussy

Obedient

Unconquerable

Playful